Amundsen, The Ice Explorer

Norwegian Roald Amundsen is another of the great names of travel and historical exploration. We are talking about the first person to reach the South Pole or to take part in the first flight over the North Pole. In other words, he was a man accustomed to ice and extreme cold, and for this reason it seemed destined for his body to disappear in such wild and remote places.

Young Amundsen

Roald Amundsen (1872 – 1928) was born in a town near Oslo, in Borge, in a family linked to the world of boats. However, his mother did everything possible to get her son away from the sea and got him to study medicine.

However, when he was young, his mother passed away and Roald immediately dropped out of school to board a seal hunting vessel. That was the beginning of his memorable adventures across the seas and ice.

The first trip to Antarctica

His youth and his early travels coincided with the fame acquired by the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, the first to cross the island of Greenland. And Nansen, since then, became a reference for him.

After the experience he had acquired in seal hunting vessels and whalers, he managed to enlist in a Belgian expedition that tried to reach Antarctica to find the magnetic South Pole.

It was a mission that they obviously did not achieve, but that Amundsen learned a lot about navigating the ice and what behaviors were appropriate to survive in such extreme conditions.

Concerned about your training

From this first trip, Amundsen always paid close attention to topics such as food or how to carry provisions on boats or sleds. In addition, he became a true expert in certain practices, such as skiing or dog sledding, which are now considered winter sports, but which were key to survival on his expeditions.

In addition to that, he was concerned with mastering the aspects of navigation and was trained in matters of magnetism and geography. And even over time he learned to fly to perform one of his many feats.

Discovery of the Northwest Passage

After that first trip to Antarctica, this adventurer set himself a first challenge: he wanted to find the sea route that linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in the northern part of the globe.

With this objective in mind, he set sail in June 1903, on his own ship and with a small group of companions. This Amundsen journey was to end more than three years later on the southern coast of Alaska and, obviously, having crossed the Northwest Passage.

Amundsen’s journey to the South Pole

After that mission accomplished, he set himself the goal of being the first man to set foot on the North Pole. But they were ahead of him, since in 1909 that milestone was achieved by the American adventurer Robert Peary. Despite the initial depression, he radically changed his objective and launched himself to the South Pole, almost in secret.

And he succeeded: on December 14, 1911, he and his expedition companions arrived by sled to the geographic South Pole. For the record, he left there a Norwegian flag, a tent, and a letter for another scout who wanted to reach the same place, Scout Scott, who arrived there more than 30 days later.

To fly over the North Pole

After his second achievement, he was greeted in Oslo as a national hero, but he didn’t want to rest on his laurels. So he set himself a new challenge: to be one of the first people to fly over the North Pole.

To do this, he embarked on an airship expedition in 1926 with the Italian Humberto Nobile. Of course, in two days of flight they arrived from Norway to Alaska, flying over the northernmost place on the planet.

However, this was to be his last great adventure. Later, Nobile himself wanted to repeat, but he got lost on his journey. So Amundsen went in search of him in a seaplane, but that ship disappeared on June 18, 1928 and Amundsen’s remains were never found.

It was the destiny of an exceptional explorer, who fortunately wrote down all his travels to us. A very suitable reading for the more adventurous spirits.